In her interview with Diane Sawyer, Nancy Pelosi says Tuesday's election was a "tough loss." YouTube

November 4, 2010

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The video: Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her first post-election TV interview, tells ABC News' Diane Sawyer that she has "no regrets" about her four years as speaker. Even the GOP's "Fire Pelosi" campaign doesn't faze her. Why? "They have used me as a personification of health care" and other major legislation the Democrats have passed since Obama took office, she told Sawyer. "I take that as a compliment." She was "coy" on her future plans.The reaction: Why would she have regrets? asks Irin Carmon in Jezebel. Tea Partiers resorted to "scapegoating and caricature" because they feared her as a brilliant House Speaker capable of getting big things done. "The measure of a leader in Washington isn't how much gets done, it's who holds power in the end," say Richard Simon and Faye Fiore in the Los Angeles Times. And "on that scale, Pelosi failed." Watch clips of the ABC interview: